Plugins in Modules

Learn how to distribute custom facts and types from the server to managed clients automatically.

Details

This page describes the deployment of custom facts and types for use by the client via modules.

Custom types and facts are stored in modules. These custom types and facts are then gathered together and distributed via a file mount on your Puppet master called plugins.

This technique can also be used to bundle functions for use by the server when the manifest is being compiled. Doing so is a two step process which is described further on in this document.

To enable module distribution you need to make changes on both the Puppet master and the clients.

Module structure

Plugins are stored in the lib directory of a module, using an internal directory structure that mirrors that of the Puppet code:

{modulepath}
└── {module}
    └── lib
        |── augeas
        │   └── lenses
        ├── facter
        └── puppet
            ├── parser
            │   └── functions
            ├── provider
            |   ├── exec
            |   ├── package
            |   └── etc... (any resource type)
            └── type

As the directory tree suggests, custom facts should go in lib/facter/, custom types should go in lib/puppet/type/, custom providers should go in lib/puppet/provider/{type}/, and custom functions should go in lib/puppet/parser/functions/.

For example:

A custom user provider:

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/puppet/provider/user/custom_user.rb

A custom package provider:

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/puppet/provider/package/custom_pkg.rb

A custom type for bare Git repositories:

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/puppet/type/gitrepo.rb

A custom fact for the root of all home directories (that is, /home on Linux, /Users on Mac OS X, etc.):

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/facter/homeroot.rb

A custom Augeas lens:

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/augeas/lenses/custom.aug

Note: Support for syncing Augeas lenses was added in Puppet 2.7.18.

And so on.

Most types and facts should be stored in which ever module they are related to; for example, a Bind fact might be distributed in your Bind module. If you wish to centrally deploy types and facts you could create a separate module just for this purpose, for example one called custom.

So, if we are using our custom module and our modulepath is /etc/puppet/modules then types and facts would be stored in the following directories:

/etc/puppet/modules/custom/lib/puppet/type
/etc/puppet/modules/custom/lib/puppet/provider
/etc/puppet/modules/custom/lib/puppet/parser/functions
/etc/puppet/modules/custom/lib/facter

Note on Usage for Server Custom Functions

Functions are executed on the server while compiling the manifest. A module defined in the manifest can invoke functions from the plugins directory. The custom function will need to be placed in the proper location within the module first:

{modulepath}/{module}/lib/puppet/parser/functions